


American Memorial

by spqr



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Casual Sex, Character Death, Codependency, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 14:28:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16369337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spqr/pseuds/spqr
Summary: “Pick up the shield,” Tony said. Understandably, Bucky told him to go fuck himself.





	American Memorial

**Author's Note:**

> caution: the unholy convergence of several unrelated ideas

Tony was six the first time Howard took him to Ardennes Memorial Cemetery.

 

Maria didn’t come; Howard’s assistant was left to wrangle Tony into a child-size suit in the back of the towncar. The tie was clip-on. Howard watched the whole sorry display with a glass of scotch in his hand and a disinterested expression. Tony remembers the unsteady motion of the car meandering down unpaved French roads. The icecubes in Howard’s glass _clink_ ed together, his assistant swore softly as she tried to maneuver her charge’s uncooperative arm into the sleeve of a tiny bespoke jacket, and Tony just watched the leafless forest _whoosh_ past in a grey blur outside the window, wondering why they hadn’t just gone to the house in Malibu like they usually did for vacation.

 

There was only one other car in the parking lot when they arrived; an old man and a young woman in black got inside and drove off as the Starks’ towncar pulled up. Tony was the first out, eager to stand on his own two feet after so long sitting—first on the flight and then on the long drive from Charles de Gaulle. Howard followed, straightening the cuffs of his own dark suit, and set off immediately for the cemetery entrance. Tony waited for a moment, expecting Howard’s assistant to get out as well. When she didn’t, he hurried after his father.

 

He caught up to Howard just as he was turning off the main footpath, trudging into the grass. Howard had yet to explain why they were here; neither of them said anything. Frosty dew clung to the legs of their pants, the toes of their polished brogues. The headstones on either side of them were nearly as tall as Tony—when he glanced in between them, he could see the graveyard stretching on for what seemed like forever. As a six-year-old, Tony had little sense of the enormity of his surroundings, but when Howard brought him back at age ten, twelve, fourteen, he would start to understand. Walking this same path, he would realize that each and every one of those thousands of headstones marked a life. Marked thousands of days, thousands of smiles, thousands of triumphs and mistakes and regrets. Marked grieving widows and bereaved fathers and children that would never be born, futures that would never come to pass.

 

The enormity would always stagger him, later. But it never gave Howard so much as a single pause.

 

Tony followed his father past scores of headstones, some marked and others not. The morning sun was trying valiantly to break through the clouds, but the air was still crisp and cold with the vestiges of a freezing night. Finally they came to a grave, as unassuming as the rest. Howard stopped to face it, and Tony stopped next to him, his head barely up to Howard’s waist.

 

The name on the headstone was _James Buchanan Barnes._

 

It wasn’t a name Tony had ever heard before, but Howard looked serious and sad, so Tony tried to emulate him. He squared his shoulders and frowned and waited for Howard to explain. It was a long minute before he did.

 

“There’s no body buried here,” was what he chose to start with. “We never found a body. Probably washed away in a river. He went by Bucky. Bucky Barnes.” A crow cawed. “He was the Captain’s best friend,” Howard continued, an edge of bitter jealousy to his voice. “Since the Captain’s not here to do it, I come here every year to pay his respects. Now you do, too.”

 

They only stayed a few perfunctory minutes. At age six, Tony was glad to get going. Years later, he would spend time wondering who Bucky would have become, if he hadn’t died. What future this headstone marked. Whether Bucky would’ve made it home, got a job as a Brooklyn cop, got himself over his shellshock with hard liquor. Whether he would’ve settled down with a Parisian girl, had a couple of kids, worked in a book shop for forty years and then retired to feed geese in a park along the Seine. Whether he would’ve gotten his happy ending, or just a dose of shit luck and harsh reality, or some happy medium. There might not be a body in the cold soil beneath his feet, but as far as Tony was concerned, that headstone still marked a life. To Howard, Bucky was just due diligence.

 

••

 

The first time it happens, Tony figures it’s a one-off.

 

It’s so late it’s almost early. Neither of them can sleep. The compound is too quiet, everyone gone. Stress has been high the past few days, and the beer in Bucky’s hand is starting to look a little too good, amber and beaded with perspiration. The eight-foot television is on, streaming an actual satellite feed from some shopping channel. A woman in a garish floral blazer wants them to buy cheap jewelry for their spouse or mother. Tony twists sideways in his chair on the off chance that it will ease the dull, restless feeling in his chest. He would go work, if he could detach the tendrils of his active brain from the flicker of television-light over Bucky’s metal arm. He’s useless like this—can’t sleep, can’t work, can’t think. It’s exhausting. Normally he only gets this way when he’s...

 

Bucky takes a swig of beer; Tony’s eyes dart away from the television to watch the motion of his throat. Involuntarily, he catalogues the dark prickles of stubble on Bucky’s chin, the strong line of his jaw, the way the mouth of the bottle depresses the wet pink pout of his lower lip. A thin line of spit comes away with the beer, and Bucky rubs it away with his thumb. Nothing has changed—the team lounge is still dark and too big, too much space for not enough people, a sprawl of couches to seat sixteen and a connected open-plan kitchen to feed sixty—but suddenly Tony feels as if he’s going to burst out of his skin from the _cold_. The separation.

 

A thought occurs to him. “Hey, Buck. When’s the last time you got laid?”

 

Bucky looks askance for all of two seconds before he actually starts considering the question. There are very few barriers left between them; Tony doubts Bucky would bother throwing one up over something like this. He’s right. “Sometime in the late nineties,” Bucky admits. “Minsk, I think. A woman with dark hair, green eyes. It, uh. It might’ve been Natalia.”

 

Her name hurts, but only barely. They’re getting better at talking about their lost teammates without either devolving into hysterics or bottling it all up. They’re figuring out how to move on, without forgetting. Anyways, this isn’t about Natasha. This is about Bucky (and Tony).

 

“Well,” Tony says, “I’ve gotten laid more recently than the _nineties_ , thank God, but it has been a while.”

 

Bucky gives Tony a look that says he knows _exactly_ where Tony’s going with this. He should—they’ve been living out of each other’s pockets for the past four months. Neither of them has been gone from the compound for more than a day since the dust finally settled. It’s been longer than Tony cares to acknowledge since they went a night without one of these little QVC sessions, and longer still since they ate dinner without each other, going all the way back to that first solemn supper of cheap hot dogs on the hood of Tony’s car after the dedication of the memorial. Bucky knows what Tony’s thinking, just like Tony knows that he knows, just like Tony knows he’s wearing two pairs of socks to counteract what the knockoff serum did to his circulation, knows he’ll send good morning texts to the rest of the team the second the sun is up, knows a bad dick joke will never fail to coax a laugh out of him even in the worst moments.

 

Tony meets Bucky’s steady, considering gaze. “I don’t _not_ like men,” Bucky says. “We could give it a try.”

 

“I’ve been told I’m very good in bed.” Tony swings his legs down off the arm of his chair, suddenly buzzing with energy. He hasn’t felt this in ages—this anxious tug towards another person. “Seriously, Buck, nothing but rave reviews.”

 

Bucky sets his beer down as Tony comes across the too-big room to his side. The fond smile that ghosts across his face feels private, feels like one more secret they’re sharing between them. So does the way he says, “Okay, hotshot. Prove it.”

 

Tony grins. “Is that a challenge?”

 

“Yeah, it is.” Bucky’s eyes track Tony as he steps in between his legs, plants a knee on the cushion and grabs onto the back of the couch. It’s an odd position; Tony’s old joints protest, complaining _too many sparring sessions_ and _not enough sleep,_ but the electricity under his skin wins out. He ducks his head, watches Bucky lean back to meet him, and there’s one last moment of hesitation where they just hover there in each other’s space, noses brushing, sharing warmth. Tony thinks, in that moment, that he could be about to ruin the strongest relationship he has left in his life. But then he dismisses that thought, because Bucky’s eyes are open and understanding, tired but crinkled at the edges like he’s happy just to have Tony this close to him, and Tony’s never trusted anyone like he trusts Bucky. Never. Not even he can fuck this up.

 

Bucky raises his eyebrows, impatient. “Is this it? I’m not impr—“

 

Tony kisses the words out of his mouth. Bucky makes a soft sound, drowned out by the obnoxious drone of the woman on QVC, and Tony’s so mad that he missed it he goes searching for it again—bites down gently on Bucky’s lower lip until he sucks in a breath and opens up, body-warm and gummy with spit and sharp with the taste of beer. Their tongues meet, a wet slide of barely-there texture, and Bucky gets with the program. His metal hand settles between Tony’s shoulders while the other slides down to feel out the curve of his ass, fingers digging into the flesh in a way that makes Tony’s abdomen tighten, makes his half-hard dick twitch in his pants.

 

He runs his hand over the back of Bucky’s head, scrapes his fingertips through Bucky’s close-cropped hair, feels his heart beat painfully at the sensation of Bucky shifting below him, the weight of him and the solidness of his grip on Tony’s body and the way moving his shoulders translates to his mouth pressing harder against Tony’s. His metal hand moves to cradle Tony’s skull, and Tony moans. Bucky smiles—Tony can feel him smiling, feel the curve of his lips. His nose is pressed so close to Bucky’s face he can smell the faint traces of sweat on him, the nightmare he hasn’t had a chance to wash off, so close he can feel the puff of air as Bucky breathes out through his nose. His hand clenches on the back of the couch; Bucky surges up into him and he lets go completely, grabs onto Bucky instead.

 

They break apart. The shape of Bucky’s dick is clear as day through his sweatpants. Tony smiles. “That for me?”

 

Bucky laughs, cheeks flushed. “Depends what you’re gonna do with it, hotshot.”

 

••

 

It was Sharon’s idea. Bury Steve Rogers, not Captain America. Keep the shield aboveground when they lowered the coffin at Arlington. Pass it on. She and Maria Hill talked to Tony about it; it fell to Tony to talk to the shield’s intended recipient.

 

The conversation doesn’t bear repeating. It wasn’t much of a conversation. Tony dutifully put forth Sharon and Maria’s arguments: the fact that Captain America was an enduring symbol of hope (one the country sorely needed), the necessity that their enemies not see them as weak, the continuity of the team structure into the era of the New Avengers, the honor that could be given to Steve’s memory. _Captain America_ was a mantle, Tony relayed verbatim, not a man. _Pick up the shield._ Understandably, Bucky told him to go fuck himself.

 

Tony knew when to leave well enough alone. Bucky drifted in and out of the compound like a specter for a couple of weeks, watching team training drills from the observation window, there one second and gone by the time Tony finished dodging a blow. Tony had made it clear to him, in that ill-fated conversation, that Bucky was welcome as a member of the team no matter what his decision ended up being, but for those first couple of weeks, Bucky was rarely present. Tony didn’t blame him—he would’ve preferred to be less present himself, but as the last of the original six, he had a responsibility to look after the next generation. The new team.

 

Not that they seemed to need much looking after; Peter had learned a great deal of restraint from his time in the soul stone, Carol had been fighting aliens before Peter was even born, Strange resisted anything that even vaguely resembled an order, and Hope could run all their lives with her eyes closed and her hands behind her back.  But they weren’t a team, couldn’t work cohesively as a unit the way the old team did. Tony did his best, fell back on old methods of training that he and Steve had used in the early days, worked them until they couldn’t stand, until Hope got fed up and punched him or Strange chucked him through an interdimensional portal to somewhere inconvenient. He did his best, but there was still something missing. He was never meant to be a leader—at least, not alone. Not without Steve.

 

Then Bucky came back, for real. And he said, “It’s what the punk would’ve wanted.”

 

Things got easier. Bucky wasn’t Steve, wasn’t used to playing fearless leader. But he was in it for the long haul, as committed as Tony to making the New Avengers work, because (like Tony) he didn’t have anything else left. They learned to lean on each other. Where Tony and Steve would’ve fought, would’ve argued, Tony and Bucky talked things out—rationally, quietly, over coffee in the morning or by the light of shopping channels at night, never in full view of the team and never in the middle of a training session. They presented a united front, got so used to the way the other thought that they could see clear solutions without even having to consult each other. Bucky called Tony _hotshot,_ but it wasn’t entirely true. Years of strife had mellowed Tony out, eased him down off the constant edge.

 

Their ghosts helped, too. Steve was never far from a command decision; they both knew him too well. A voice that sounded just like Bruce reminded Tony to try to sleep, when he could find time. The memory of Natasha soothed Bucky after a nightmare better than Tony ever would. An echo of Thor’s booming laugh brightened some of Tony’s darker moments. Clint wedged his way, uninvited, into every second of his interaction with Peter. He was, after all, the best father Tony had ever known. Vision talked him out of most of his bad decisions, nowadays. Wanda reminded him to open up, share his fears, share the burden. Ten years ago, Tony would’ve set out on a journey to the bottom of every bottle in the compound to try and get rid of the ghosts; now he smiled faintly whenever he caught a glimpse of one around a corner.

 

Bucky took up the mantle. Most of the team thought it was a spur-of-the-moment decision, under pressure from the _Avengers Assemble_ alarm when they got called up to their first fight. But Tony knew the truth—Bucky made that choice the second Tony suggested it. He always knew what he had to do, he just wasn’t ready, yet. The heart accepted, but the brain rebelled.

 

Tony’s going to be forever grateful that the heart won. He doesn’t know what this team would’ve looked like without Bucky, but he does know what his life would’ve looked like: a slow, inexorable slide to join the rest of the original six in the ground.

 

••

 

Sex with Bucky becomes a form of stress relief. It’s a strange phenomenon.

 

By all accounts, it shouldn’t work so flawlessly. They’re best friends, closer than Tony’s ever been with any of his previous partners, even Pepper. They’re together all the time, never have space to decompress. Sleeping together should complicate things, but it doesn’t. It simplifies. It lifts a weight off of Tony’s shoulders every time he backs Bucky hard into a wall and hears the air go out of him, every time he bites down on the junction of Bucky’s neck and shoulder and feels the other man go boneless underneath him, every time Bucky gives in and pulls hard on Tony’s hair, every time Bucky shoves him down into bed and follows him down laughing, every time Tony has a tough time getting it up and Bucky just gives him a fond, knowing look and spends _ages_ mouthing at him through his briefs, teasing the arousal out of him.

 

Tony feels more alive than he has in a long time. Not just _happy to be alive_ , but aware of the vitality of his own body, aware of the thick muscle of the heart in his chest, spasming to push blood through his veins, aware of the fragility of his own bones, of how easily Bucky could crush his skull, if he really wanted. And aware of not just his own body, but his partner’s.

 

Sex with a man is very different than sex with a woman. It’s not a dance, or an art, or any of those flowery euphemisms. It’s pushing and pulling toward release, kneading the body like dough until something gives way and one of them tumbles over the edge. There’s no pressure to perform, to impress. Just the two of them, sweaty and twisted in bed together, and a shared goal.

 

“ _God,_ Tony,” Bucky chokes, “I’m gonna—fuck, I’m gonna—“

 

Tony pulls off to finish Bucky lazily with his hand. Bucky’s eyes track the thin line of spit unreeling between Tony’s lip and his dick, Tony gives an expert twist of his hand, and Bucky’s whole body snaps taut. His legs press down on Tony’s back, knees hooked over his shoulders, and Tony turns to press a kiss to the hairy inside of his thigh while he watches Bucky twitch between his fingers. He squeezes him through it, runs the ring of his thumb and forefinger down to the swollen head of Bucky’s dick as the first white spurt of come gushes out, then the second, and then the last trickle, just enough of an ooze to coat the tip of Tony’s thumb.

 

He lets go of Bucky with one last brush of his knuckles across the vein on the underside of him, like a quick goodbye kiss, then looks up and makes steady eye contact as he sucks that last bead of come off his thumb. Bucky watches, mouth still open and slack from his orgasm, flushed chest heaving with the cooldown. Tony grins. “Shucks, Buck, I would’ve swallowed if I knew it would make you look like _that_.”

 

Bucky drops his legs from Tony’s shoulders and heaves him up the bed. Tony’s own arousal hangs heavy and thick between his legs, but he’s barely even thinking of that. Not when there are more important things to focus on, to memorize.

 

The safe, steady feeling of being pressed trunk to trunk with the one man he trusts more than anyone else in the world. Bucky’s ribcage expanding and contracting under his hands, the skin over his flanks sticky and warmer than the midday midsummer sun slanting in through the shades. The unspoken intimacy of two naked bodies tangled in a mess of sheets, of Bucky’s lips dragging over his, unhurried and unconcerned with things like finesse, technique. The thrill that leaps under his sternum when Bucky plants a foot and rolls them, the heady weight of Bucky’s body over him. The way Bucky smiles, a sentiment tucked close between their faces, meant only for them, for here and now.

 

Later, just after dusk, Tony jolts awake.

 

Bucky slumbers next to him, a faint outline of a man in the low light. His hair is a mess on top of his head, in his forehead. He’s going to need another haircut soon. One of his feet is hooked around Tony’s calf, cold even through two socks. Tony’s heart races. He reaches out across the wrinkled sheets to Bucky’s flesh and blood hand, to fingers curled loosely in sleep. Bucky’s fingertips are cold—his extremeties are always cold—but when Tony presses his own fingertips against them, Bucky presses back. He doesn’t wake, but it’s enough. Tony exhales.

 

In the wake of everything (in the wake of Thanos), Tony has plenty of things to fill his nightmares. Nowadays, though, there’s one he has more than all the others. He’s in a cemetery in France, staring at a headstone that says _James Buchanan Barnes._ He digs down with his hands, down into the frozen, dark earth, and this grave should be empty. He should keep digging forever without reaching anything but bedrock. And then, through the cold crumble of the soil, he feels flesh. Cold, dead flesh. And he keeps digging, and he finds a face. He brushes dirt out of eyes he knows better than he knows his own, off the jut of a strong chin, off sad, droopy eyebrows, off lips he could spend the rest of his life kissing. Sometimes he wakes up then. And sometimes he spends hours in that grave, excavating all of him, hauls the dead weight of his partner out onto the well-trimmed grass and sits with him for ages, waiting for his chest to move.

 

Tonight was one of those. Tony runs his fingers over Bucky’s palm, up to his wrist, over the thin skin on the underside of his forearm. He can’t reach past his elbow, so instead he rolls into him, presses his face to the side of Bucky’s chest and feels that arm close around his shoulders, automatic in sleep. The room is quiet, the compound empty. Tony focuses on the sound of Bucky’s breathing, and drifts back to sleep.

 

The next time he wakes, it’s nearly dawn. Bucky is half-asleep next to him, metal arm thrown across his face, his phone in his hand. Tony watches a few text messages come in—the rest of the team, responding to Bucky’s _good morning_.

 

Tony blinks slowly to get the sleep out of his eyes. A smile tugs lazily on his lips, unbidden. Bucky is…he’s so gorgeous, and so real, and so _Tony’s,_ and some huge, amber feeling blooms in Tony’s chest. It’s like the sun; if he looks directly at it, it’s too much. It’s staggering, the enormity of what he feels for this idiot. “Morning, sunshine,” he says, teasing. Bucky groans. “What, not enough beauty sleep?”

 

Bucky huffs. “ _Please._ Like I need beauty sleep.” He lowers his arm. Tony can hear the gears whir faintly, a familiar sound. “I used to be able to wake up on a dime. Now it’s more like a couple grand. I think I might be getting old.”

 

Tony doesn’t say _no shit, you’re ninety-nine_ , like he would’ve with Steve. He knows every one of those years weighs on Bucky, knows Bucky doesn’t like to think of them as _his_ , but rather as stolen. It’s better not to bring it up, so instead Tony says, “Welcome to the club, pal.”

 

Bucky moves his flesh and blood arm to tip Tony over into his space. Tony goes easily, lands half-on Bucky’s chest in time to receive a short close-mouthed kiss. The air between them is musky with morning breath and evidence of last night, but Bucky licks thickly into Tony’s mouth anyways. Tony _hmms_ , his eyes half-open. There’s still sleep-sand crusted onto the edges of Bucky’s eyelashes; Tony spreads a hand over Bucky’s side and imagines he can feel his body shaking off the last vestiges of slumber, heartbeat kicking up to daytime pace. Bucky’s phone buzzes somewhere between them, and neither of them even breaks away for a second.

 

Tony probably should’ve figured it out sometime around the third morning they woke up like this. Sex with Bucky isn’t just stress relief.

 

••

 

His arm should’ve clued him in a while ago. Factoring in with two open-heart surgeries in as many years, his advanced age, the months he spent hooked up to a car battery, not to mention the stress of his lifestyle…Tony should’ve seen the heart attack coming. But he didn’t. He was so preoccupied with what was going on out in the world that he never stopped to reconsider what was going on inside his own chest. It hit him, as these things are wont to do, at the most inopportune time—in the middle of a battle. In hindsight, it was lucky they were in New York and not some third-world country, but nothing about the situation seemed very _lucky_ when Tony’s heart tore itself apart three miles up, his vision went dark, and the suit started to plummet. Friday caught him, but he was out for the count. Useless.

 

A full twenty-four hours later, he wakes up in a hospital bed. Machines beep all around him, and combined with the quiet murmur of people moving around outside the door, it’s almost like white noise. Soothing. What’s _not_ soothing is Bucky—he looks like a wreck, eyes rubbed red and raw, skin pallid, shoulders hunched in a sweatshirt Tony could swear used to be Steve’s. Tony’s throat is dry as the Afghan desert, and he feels like he got hit by an eighteen-wheeler. But he manages to say, “You don’t look so good, Buck.”

 

Bucky’s eyes snap up to his face. “Tony,” he breathes, and just that one word pushes him headfirst into a tired smile. He takes one of Tony’s hands in both of his, firm but mindful of the IV needles. “Jesus, hotshot, you’re one to talk. Fuck, you scared me.”

 

“I scared me, too,” Tony admits. “There any water in this hospital?”

 

Bucky retrieves a cup of water from the bathroom. Most of it slops on Tony’s chin on the first try, but it’s okay because Bucky snorts a little, and then Tony says, “Am I amusing you?” and then they’re both laughing. Apparently things were touch-and-go there for a while, and juxtaposed with Bucky dabbing water out of Tony’s beard with the sleeve of Steve’s sweatshirt, it’s just…hilarious.

 

Eventually they calm down. The hospital bed tilts to the side slightly to accommodate Bucky’s weight, the papery fabric of the hospital gown feels foreign against Tony’s skin, and the only thing that matters is that Bucky is holding that tiny plastic cup so, so carefully in his metal hand. The only thing that matters is: their eyes meet, and hold, and hold. “C’mere,” Tony murmurs. Bucky does. They don’t kiss so much as they just rest there together, forehead to forehead, sharing space. Reacclimatizing. A thought flickers across Tony’s mind. “Imagine if Steve could see us now,” he says softly. “ _God,_ the lecture we’d get. _Fraternization between team leaders—“_

“ _Jeopardizing the hierarchical command structure,”_ Bucky says, pitching his voice low in an awful imitation of Steve. “And then, uh— _patriotic duty, setting a good example for the rest of the team,_ yadda yadda yadda, watch your language.”

 

“Wow,” Tony says. “That was truly special. I mean, just—uncanny. I could’ve sworn you were actually Captain America.”

 

Bucky grants him an amused look. Then a nurse arrives, and they’re forced to separate for a while. It’s not until much later, after Tony’s been discharged, after Bucky’s thwarted his attempts to drive himself home, after Bucky’s helped him limp inside to the couch, after the rest of the team has come and gone from the lounge, Peter lingering for a full hour to flutter nervously around the kitchen prepping “heart healthy meal options,” that Bucky lets the amusment drop. He turns off the television and sits down on the coffee table across from Tony. Behind him on the wall there’s a framed photo of the original six, enlarged from a newspaper clipping. Natasha’s smiling her rare, brilliant smile, one arm around Clint and one around Bruce. Tony can tell just from the set of Bucky’s shoulders that this is going to be a serious conversation.

 

“You can’t die,” Bucky says. There’s a pause—Tony opens his mouth to interject, but Bucky keeps going before he can. “This doesn’t work without both of us, Tony. That whole thing we did where we got over everything, got through everything by—by leaning on each other, it doesn’t work with just me.” His eyes shine, and Tony prays those aren’t tears, but he can’t look away. Couldn’t even if he wanted to. “I need you,” Bucky says. “I don’t know how to do any of this without you. I can’t. I won’t.”

 

Months ago, sitting on the hood of Tony’s car eating cheap hot dogs, Tony said the same thing. They’d just come from the dedication of the memorial, that big ugly glass thing in D.C. with his family’s faces on it. Steve’s face, Thor’s face. Tony licked mustard off his thumb, admired Bucky’s new haircut, and said, “You and I both know they would hate that thing. That’s not honoring their memory. The best way to honor their memory is to keep fighting. It’s what they would’ve done.” Said, “I need your help. I can’t do this without you, Barnes.”

 

Now, in a _today_ that hurts a bit less than _yesterday,_ he says, “You don’t have to. I’m not done yet.”  

 

Bucky shifts closer, props his elbows on his knees, and Tony knows the words he’s going to say before he even inhales the breath to say them. “Prove it, hotshot.”

 

Tony grabs him by the front of Steve’s sweatshirt, and does.


End file.
